Let Him Go: A Novel (12 page)

Blanche stubs out her cigarette and with one long swallow finishes her drink. Bill Weboy touches the corner of her lips as if he’s blotting wine.

But you came here to eat, Blanche says, not to hear me yak. Bill, why don’t you go call the boys in for supper.

Aye, aye, cap’n, he says, stands, and leaves to carry out her bidding.

To the Blackledges Blanche says, But I suppose you could tell a story not a hell of a lot different from mine. You got a ranch over in North Dakota, I understand?

Not anymore, Margaret says. We sold a few years back and moved into town.

Sure, sure. I knew that. Of course. Well, look around here. I’ve sold off all the livestock. We can do better selling car parts and scrap metal than running cattle or horses.

Back in the thirties, George says, we gathered up bones out on the prairie and sold them.

Anything to make a buck back then. Right?

Almost, replies George.

Blanche leans toward Margaret and whispers, How long have you had the palsy?

You can say it out loud, says Margaret. She puts her hand on George’s arm. He knows about my condition. And it’s not palsy. It’s—oh hell, doctors don’t know what it is.

Well, you know what, honey? You’re too damn young to be trembling like that.

It seems to bother other people more than it does me. I can still thread a needle.

Bill Weboy returns to the kitchen. Trailing behind him are two somber, hulking young men in oil-spotted and grease-streaked clothing.

There they are, says Blanche Weboy. Meet the boys. The tall one’s Elton and the other’s Marvin. Marvin’s older by ten months, which should tell you something about my ex-husband. Say hello to our guests.

They each say hello in curiously soft, high-pitched voices.

That’s about the most you’ll hear out of them all evening, Bill Weboy says. They’re the strong, silent type.

Have we got any beer? Elton asks.

You know we do, his mother answers. But first you go wash up and change out of those clothes. I don’t want our company to be sitting down to eat and smelling motor oil instead of my cooking.

The young men tramp out of the kitchen. Their distinguishing feature, aside from their bulk, is dark curly hair that grows low on their foreheads and close to their skulls like sheep’s wool.

How’s that Hudson running? Bill Weboy asks. I bet those boys would be willing to take a look under the hood for you. Tap a little here, tighten a screw there, they could probably get you a few more horses.

George Blackledge ignores this question and instead slowly stands and asks, Where’s the boy? Where’s Jimmy?

Blanche leans back and looks at him a long moment. Why, he’s not
here.
He’s with his daddy.

Margaret can’t hold back. His father—!

George quiets her with nothing more than a hand raised a few inches from the tabletop. We came here to see our grandson. On George’s cheeks white spots show as if, with anger, the skin had tightened and become thin enough for bone to show through.

Blanche laughs and looks to her brother-in-law. You mean they didn’t come here to eat my pork chops?

As if following the newly-established convention that no one will be addressed directly, Bill Weboy speaks to Margaret. If you can calm that husband of yours, we can enjoy the evening. And you can still see your grandson.

When night comes on in a room lit by kerosene, any
flicker of the flame can give the sense that darkness is about to triumph. George sits back down and says, If you brought us out here for the sake of a joke . . .

Blanche Weboy’s wide smile remains, but her eyes narrow warily. Your grandson’s with my Donnie, she says matter-of-factly. He took Jimmy along to go pick up the boy’s mother.

Now it is Margaret who looks to Bill Weboy for clarification. Lorna . . . ?

She’s working at Monkey Ward, Bill says.

In Gladstone?

You didn’t tell them? asks Blanche.

Bill shrugs. I thought maybe they’d be back by now.

We could’ve seen Lorna and Jimmy in
Gladstone
?

Blanche waggles her finger at Margaret. Now I’m feeling insulted. You really don’t give a damn about my cooking, do you?

I just meant . . .

Maybe you’re a Jew. Maybe you can’t eat pork chops.

George interlaces his fingers once again. Neither he nor his wife say anything, and after a long silent moment in which the only movement is the shifting cloud of Bill Weboy’s cigar smoke, Blanche laughs. Oh, breathe easy. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t be insulted. Eat my pork chops or don’t.

We’d certainly hoped, Margaret says, to meet Donnie’s family someday.

Did you. Well, I thought we should meet too. Bill, as long as you’re standing there you could pour me another glass of wine. Blanche points at George and Margaret. You sure?

I’m not much of a wine drinker, George says.

Something stronger, maybe?

He shakes his head.

How about you? Blanche asks Margaret. You a teetotaler?

Oh no, says Margaret. I take a drink of whiskey every year or two.

Bill Weboy sets a full jelly glass of elderberry wine in front of Blanche and then resumes his post leaning against the icebox.

Blanche says, A special-occasion drinker, eh? And this doesn’t qualify? She raises her glass and sips delicately. The truth is, I thought we should meet and have a talk. Donnie thinks maybe the two of you don’t approve of him. With her ability to smile and scowl at the same time, Blanche Weboy looks from Margaret to George and back to Margaret again.

George raises his head slowly and levels his gaze at Blanche. Donnie gives a damn what we think? I’m surprised to hear that.

Blanche slips a cigarette from the pack of Pall Malls on the table. By the time the cigarette arrives at her lips, Bill Weboy has stepped forward with a lit match.

I wonder, Blanche says, if you ain’t been comparing Donnie to your son. And that’s never fair to the living. They can’t ever measure up to the dead.

Is Donnie working? Margaret asks.

He’s not as mechanically inclined as Marv or Elton but Donnie puts in his time out in the barn. Blanche blows a stream of smoke Margaret’s way. Not that Donnie needs to answer to you.

No, he certainly doesn’t. And I don’t have to talk up my son’s virtues to you.

Blanche Weboy leans back in her chair and fans her face. Ho-ho! We better get some food in our bellies before this get-together turns into a real blood feud—the Weboys versus the Blackledges!

And we got numbers on ’em, says Bill with a chuckle.

As if his statement required illustration, at that moment the brothers Weboy clomp back into the kitchen.

Blanche arches her eyebrows. I better feed these boys or we won’t be joking about a feud. Margaret, will you deal out those plates? Bill, you can pull those pork chops out of the oven. And they’re probably dried out by now, so grab some ketchup and Worcestershire too.

The Weboy brothers seat themselves. Margaret and Bill do as they’ve been asked—she sets the table, and from the oven Bill brings a cake pan piled with pork chops. As soon as he sets it down, the brothers grab two chops apiece. Blanche walks around the table with a pot and puts a few boiled potatoes on every plate. The evening’s vegetable—canned corn—is served from a large bowl. Blanche starts to sit down, then stops. She retrieves a loaf of store-bought bread from a drawer and puts it on the table next to the butter. We don’t stand on ceremony around here, she says. Help yourselves and if you need something you don’t see, just ask. If I got it, you can have it.

Blanche Weboy puts food on her plate but makes no move to eat. She watches her sons like a mother who restrains herself in case she has to give up her portions to her children. For their part, Elton and Marvin eat with such focused vehemence that any conversation would seem out of place.

A car’s headlights sweep across the kitchen window.
The sound of a car’s engine throbbing before a clunk and then silence. A car door slams and then another. George and Margaret look up expectantly, their knives and forks poised. In another moment, the back door rattles open and someone calls out, Anybody home?

It’s Donnie . . .

H
E APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY
,
SMILING AND RAISING A
finger to the bill of his baseball cap in greeting to the diners. His first steps forward clatter on the kitchen floor.

Goddamnit! his mother says. Don’t come in here in those shoes! You’re going to chew up this linoleum and it ain’t even two months old!

The hell, Bill says. You still playing baseball?

We’re playing until the snow flies, says Donnie. And come next spring we’ll have a leg up on every other team in the league.

You’ll need more than a leg up, Marvin says, if you don’t want your ass kicked.

Donnie is not only the best looking of the Weboy brothers, his presence in the room puts a little polish on Marvin and Elton. Now it’s possible to see how close those thick wooly curls are to a head of wavy hair, how near those sullen expressions are to pouting sensuality, to see how easily those low, heavy brows could translate to a brooding charm. It’s even possible, looking from Donnie to his brothers to his uncle Bill, to imagine what the boys’ father must have looked like. A handsome man.

Without untying the laces of his cleats, Donnie steps on the heels and kicks the shoes back out into the entryway,
the dark cave that George and Margaret are watching so intently.

Hey! a woman’s voice says. Watch it! Lorna steps into the kitchen’s light. She’s a slender, pretty woman who looks tired and mussed from a long day on her feet. Her hair has lost some of the wave that it no doubt had when she left the house this morning. Her lipstick has been chewed or licked away. Under her eyes are semicircles almost as dark as bruises. Both her blouse and skirt look a size too large for her. Lorna’s holding her son, who clings to his mother as if she had fur.

Hello, Jimmy, Margaret says.

At the sound of her voice, the boy looks up quickly. Recognition flares in his eyes, but then, as if even four-year-olds understand that on some occasions they must stop themselves from speaking, he quickly puts his thumb in his mouth, hooking his index finger comfortably around his nose.

Uh-uh, Blanche says, and Lorna hastily pulls Jimmy’s thumb from his mouth.

To Margaret, Blanche looks for affirmation. Am I right? Sure way to end up with buck teeth?

But Margaret displays no interest in orthodontics or child discipline. She has eyes only for her grandson. She rises from the table and walks toward the boy with her arms extended. Jimmy neither shrinks from her nor reaches out.

May I? Margaret asks Lorna.

Lorna shrugs her son from her shoulder and he goes willingly, letting his weight fall into his grandmother’s waiting arms.

Jimmy. She kisses the top of the boy’s head. I’ve missed
you so much, she says, closing her eyes and breathing in the child’s essence. Jimmy . . .

A look passes between Blanche and Lorna, and though George seems to have caught it, Margaret is lost to any world outside the circle of her arms.

Relieved of her son’s weight, Lorna stretches and massages the small of her back. God, she says, he’s turning into a load. This she says of a pale, delicate, thin-limbed child who nestles into his grandmother’s embrace without a wriggle or a complaint.

I told you, says Donnie. You pick him up too much. How’s he supposed to learn?

Learn what? How to walk? He knows how to walk.

Hell, I’d probably unlearn how myself if someone would carry me everywhere I wanted to go. That’s flat-out spoiling him.

Has he eaten? Blanche asks.

I bought him a hamburger at Ressler’s. While we were waiting for Lorna.

And did he eat it?

About half.

Does he want a pork chop? Some potato? Blanche reaches over and tugs on Jimmy’s foot. Do you? Can I cut up a little meat for you?

Without taking his head from his grandmother’s shoulder the boy says no.

What’s that? What are you supposed to say? Blanche yanks harder on Jimmy’s foot.

The words are muffled because he speaks them into Margaret’s neck, but Jimmy says, No, thank you.

To Lorna Blanche says, Take him up to bed then.

Lorna makes no attempt to take her son back from his grandmother nor Margaret to pass him back to his mother.

We believe, Blanche says to George as if he’s the one who has an interest in the matter, in early-to-bed in this house. Blanche reaches up and pats Jimmy’s bottom. And we believe in walking up the stairs on your own two feet.

Margaret backs up a few steps and tightens her hold on her grandson. Her eyes are open now, darting from one Weboy to another before settling coldly on Blanche.

Easy now, Grandma, says Bill Weboy, moving to stand between Margaret and the door. You know who makes the rules here.

At this remark George stands again, abruptly this time, his chair skidding across Blanche Weboy’s new linoleum. Marvin pushes away from the table too but remains in his chair.